High School Football: Jeff Cappa is writing his own script

Wissahickon's Jeff Cappa reacts to a play call made just before the end of the half at Friday night's game against Plymouth Whitemarsh. The Trojans' lost at home, 31-7. Rebecca Savedow/Times Herald Staff 9.23.11

LOWER GWYNEDD — Jeff Cappa claims he did not become a football coach because of his father.

But he certainly fits in well with the rest of the Cappa clan.

Cappa, now in his second season as the head coach at Wissahickon High, is one of four members of the Cappa family now or at one time involved in coaching high school football.

The roots of the coaching tree were begun by Jake Cappa, Jeff’s father, who this past summer was inducted into the Pennsylvania Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame after a head coaching career that spanned 18 seasons at Riverview High School in Western Pa. Hired out of college in 1969 at age 24 to be the head football coach at Verona High School, Jake Cappa was not only the youngest head football coach in the state, he was a successful one, too, going 13-3-2 over two seasons before the school merged with Oakmont High to form Riverview. Eventually becoming the head coach at the school, Jake became a legend, compiling a 129-59-6 record while leading Riverview to three appearances in the WPIAL Class A championship game (winning in 1997) and being named the conference coach of the year seven times.

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While son John played under his father, the team’s two waterboys were twin sons Jeff and Jason.

There certainly was a lot of football talk in the Cappa household, but none of it involved Jake’s sons playing the game.

“I guess, indirectly, I became a coach because of my father,” said Jeff, whose Trojans host Plymouth Whitemarsh Friday in a key Suburban One League American Conference game. “But I didn’t do it because of him. I did it because I was around football all the time. It was a big part of my life.”

“My dad never forced me or my brother to play. He always told us to play only if we loved the game and wanted to do it.”

But Jeff and Jason may have been the state’s youngest assistant coaches.

“We helped my dad break down film, even when we were in fifth or sixth grade,” Jeff said. “He would have us follow certain players and tell him what they were doing on certain plays.”

At the same time, because of their interest in the game, the Cappa brothers got an early glimpse at what it took to put together a successful program.

“We only did it because we wanted to be around our dad, but we got to see the correct way of doing things and how to prepare for games,” Jeff said. “I recall a lot of the things he did and I still lean on them.

“I got to see, first-hand, how to run a program. I saw him addressing players and was there when he was talking with his football staffs. I do those same things now and it feels completely natural. The blueprint I’m using here in trying to build the Wissahickon program comes directly from my dad.”

Eventually, Jeff and Jason played under their dad. Brother John had moved on to play at the University of West Virginia, where he played tight end on the Mountaineers team that dueled Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship in 1988.

Meanwhile, option quarterback/outside linebacker Jeff and tight end/inside linebacker Jason played for their father, eventually moving on to play together at Clarion University, where they reached the Division II national semifinals in 1996.

“The first pass I ever threw in college was intercepted by my brother,” Jeff laughed. “It was in the spring game and it’s something he’ll never let me forget.”

Meanwhile, at home, Jake and his sons had their biggest fans cheering them on.

“Our mom probably knows more about football than most men and she was also the head basketball coach at Riverview for a few years.

“We’re a football family, but when we’re together we’re always talking sports — all sports. We all played football, basketball and baseball in high school.”

Once out of school, the brothers turned their attention to coaching. John became the head coach at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh where he took his team to the district playoffs. Eventually, a job change took him to Kiski Area High School, also in Pittsburgh, where he is now an assistant.

Jason is Riverview’s defensive coordinator.

And Jeff is continuing to build the program at Wissahickon — with many of the lessons he learned from his father.

“I’m very lucky to have a dad like him,” Jeff said. “He’s not overbearing, and he never has tried to push his philosophy on me. We run a different scheme than he did. We don’t run option. The types of things he tells me are to learn from my experiences and to always keep learning. Try and make things better every year.”

“He always told us, ‘I won’t always win every game, but nobody will out-prepare me and no one will outwork me.’ And his attention to detail is something I still have. Sometimes we’ll run a play in practice 10 times until we make sure every player is running it right.”

“The brothers are so busy with their teams, they don’t get a chance to critique each other, but my dad is retired so he has the luxury of being able to critique us all. He’ll be outspoken about certain things with me, but he’s never demeaning.”

Jake does lend his son some coaching assistance, albeit from 270 miles away, through HUDL, an on-line video analysis system that allows Jake to see game footage of Jeff’s upcoming opponents.

“He’ll look at film and write things down, and I’ll do the same and then we compare notes,” Jeff said. “It’s a good way to make sure I’m not overlooking anything.”

With all of the football talk going on — now, even cross-state football talk — how has Jeff’s wife Nicki adapted to having joined a football family?

Fine, since she also has a sports background. While at Riverview, she was a sprinter and a state qualifier on the track team. And one of her teachers at Riverview was one Jake Cappa.

“I didn’t know Nicki in high school,” Jeff said. “I went home for Thanksgiving one year, met her and we dated long-distance for a while. She gets it. Her cousin is Tom Tumulty, who went to Pitt and was a linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals.

“Because my dad was her teacher, Nicki called him Mr. Cappa for about two years.”

When it was suggested Jeff had lived the life some men would pay to have lived, he didn’t disagree.

“Looking back on it, to me, it was a pretty cool experience,” he said. “For me, it’s just my life. But we used to be on the sidelines for the WPIAL championship games every year (at Three Rivers Stadium and now at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, where titles in all four school classifications are settled on one day), so I’ve been on the sidelines for some of the best high school games in Pennsylvania. I’ve gotten to meet some outstanding coaches. And those kinds of experiences are something I’ve been fortunate to have.”

“At Thanksgiving, by season’s end, between all of us we have some pretty good stories to tell around the dinner table. If we had a tape recorder we’d make a lot of money.”